Watch Dogs: Legion Online Sets New Release

Watch Dogs: Legion released back in October, and while it was received differently by some, there was one portion of the game yet to release. Originally scheduled for December, the online portion was delayed last year because, as the team claimed at the time, they still had technical issues to handle with the singleplayer. One would assume, those technical issues would conflict with online play too, though that’s yet to be confirmed by the team.

Yesterday, Ubisoft released the gameplay overview of the online mode, complete with the obligatory tiered seasons and the very tame and controlled voice chat about the game. In it, it was revealed the mode will be coming to players on Tuesday, March 9th. With it being a gameplay overview, we also got a glimpse into what you’ll be doing as you trawl the city of London looking to recruit new Ded Sec members and complete the season content, including a spider-bot version of Robot Wars.

Fans of the more stealth-techno futurism gameplay that the two former Watch Dogs games are known for will be a little disappointed it seems. A majority of the events include some form of espionage to destroy and/or take out a target. Being multiplayer-focused, most events need to provide all players with something to do, which has resulted in the dry and drab formula of one doing the hacking while the other does all the shooting. Some cases requiring a total of three players, with a maximum of four total to any given group.

A number of larger publications, including Polygon and Eurogamer, were given an early preview to the online, with the most off-putting comment coming from Polygon’s Owen Good. “For impatient fans, what I played in a closed preview event one month ago didn’t exactly look like something worth the extended wait,” said Good. It seems that those who were a bit dismayed with the latest installment of the series will probably not find much enjoyment in the online expansion to the game. Without getting my hands on it personally, I could see why, to be honest.

The overview doesn’t feel like there is much of a reason to switch over, with the main gimmick being up to three other players and a new tech-point system. It isn’t directly stated, but the new system, called “influence points,” is used for everything including recruiting among weapon and tech upgrades. In the video, it is noted the way to gain these points is through ranking up in the seasons, but one could assume there will also be a way to purchase these via microtransactions as you can with ETO in the single-player. Though to be very clear, this has not been confirmed by Ubisoft. It is just speculation and looking at the track record.